Container Tracking

IOT & WEB DEVELOPMENT & UX DESIGN

Oulu-based Creoir Oy selected us to develop the web service for a textbook IoT case. We created an application to remotely track freight containers and the environmental conditions inside them, for an international client.

The service allows intercontinental shipping companies and their clients to know if the conditions and hence the goods inside every single container are optimal. Sensitive products, like fruits, are easily damaged in suboptimal conditions. If anything goes wrong, it’s now possible to track down where in the process the accident happened, and who is responsible.

How it works

The container tracking system consists of a custom device which is put inside the container. The device uses different sensors to monitor the environmental conditions and sends them to the back-end service securely. The transport can last up to 2 months, during which the device must be operational and independent. When the device connects to a GSM network it will automatically send the data to the cloud, with no manual actions needed.

Codemate focused on designing and implementing the web application and the cloud service for the tracking device which was developed by Creoir Oy.

One of the major tasks was to design the UI of the web application so that tracking hundreds of the containers per user would feel pleasant. We introduced intelligent alert systems and prioritised the data on the dashboard so that the containers that need actions are emphasized.

Scalable and secure

Due to the nature of the system, the back-end system had major scalability, performance and reliability requirements. Thousands of devices can be sending data to the cloud simultaneously. The big data amount needs to be crunched into sophisticated graphs and the information about something going wrong within the transport needs to be picked up and smart actions made in real time. This required right choices for the programming and cloud technologies.